FROM ENGINEER TO CO-CREATIVE CATALYST; AN INCLUSIONAL AND TRANSFORMATIONAL JOURNEY. An inquiry into the epistemology of how traditional management 'tools and theory' can be used and evolved in enhancing organizational effectiveness in an industrial setting, and how to value and evaluate change.

Abstract of PhD Submission
Graham John van Tuyl

This thesis is motivated by my desire to understand what it is a Change Agent actually does. Change Agents work in a variety of ways, and have a variety of organizational experiences in helping to create change. Over the years I have become more aware that there is no single body of theory that combines and explains the practical and theoretical approaches that can be taken in Change Management.

In this thesis I will show how I use my current and past practice to improve my understanding of my ontology as a Change Agent and develop an inclusional epistemology, based on my evolving practice. This ontology transforms the way Change Management within an industrial setting can be approached, by creating fluidity across boundaries and a receptive co-creative space. In this way I create my own Living Theory.

This thesis demonstrates through the narrative of my personal journey how being an Engineer and a Co-Creative Catalyst in generating organizational change can be an inclusional and transformational journey. Co-Creative Catalyst(s) use their own professional and personal values to help generate a creative space at the 'Edge of Fluidity', a space of embodied and emergent viewpoints on what change should be. This thesis will demonstrate how an inclusional practice can be used to help create change, whilst also demonstrating that current economic practice needs to be understood as a fundamentally important barrier to fluidity of ideas across boundaries. This thesis demonstrates how inclusional change can incorporate social, technical as well as economic models to be truly sustainable.

A further element that this thesis shows is that the language used needs to change in order to generate an inclusional and transformational journey. The language used in this narrative changes with the development of my epistemology.

CONTENTS

You can download the PhD in chapters in pdf format

Frontpiece, Abstract, Acknowledgements, Contents page 1

From Engineer to Co-Creative Catalyst page 13

Research Methodology and Standards of Judgement page 39

Change Management - A Personal Perspective page 77

Distance Travelled page 209

Epilogue page 287

Bibliography page 313

Appendices page 333

Attachments page 565/The three CDs are in the copy in the Library of the University of Bath